Bryce
Just finished my first reread of the series and it was just as awesome as the first. I don't have the words for how much I love those universe. The demon characters were some of my favorites and the lucrim system was incredibly interesting. I really enjoyed the accurate feel around the high performance athletes and the tradeoffs and the predatory trainers as well.
I feel like there is so much to explore here and I truly hope that one day those books are written, maybe in more of a typical fantasy setting so we can do more exploring, and not feel so constricted by the narrow definition of “progression fantasy”. I'm sure in another few years I'll be back rereading this outstanding trilogy.
I loved this series. It started off a bit rough and doesn't explain the “magic' system well and none of that bothers me because I look for a story I can fall into and a character that I can empathize with.
I truly wish that had I been forced into the same situations and circumstances that I would have made the choices that he did. The characters are poor, like actual poverty poor. It's convincingly written in a way that it's both front and center and just a fact of life not dwelled on, but it really adds a certain amount of heart and “need” to the feelings in the book.
The magic system isn't clearly defined and you get to learn it in drips and spurts through out the book. This was great for me, possibly because I had just come off of a book where the story formula was 10 pounds encyclopedic explanation of the magical system followed by 3 ounces of story on repeat until I stopped reading. I feel like I always had the bare minimum I needed to progress the story.
I really liked the universe and the diverse characters we meet along the way. This got me hooked on the author and I'm really glad that it did.
Found my notes on this so I can finally do a series review:
Overall I'm glad I read the series. However I don't see myself re-reading it or exploring the world further.
1) Language
There was no cursing, however there was way too much “cursing”. You got these substitute curse words dropped in that give you an image of a child holding a stick playing make believe. Knave, dastard, blackheart, villain, fiend these were all used rather than curses. If you actually subbed in real curse words you'd hopefully think “There's so much cursing that it's taking away from reading the book.” However instead you're just annoyed with their overuse and the author never adjusted it through the series.
2) The author repeats things we should be trusted to remember.
Book 6 we're STILL being told that Traces is Zelfree's eldrin.
Book 8, the final book, we are STILL being reminded that Eventide is a true form arcanist and that Atlas Turtles make barriers. We learn this in book one and get reminded of it ALL THE TIME through the series. We'll get reminded of this multiple times in every single book, but get zero details on “woad plant” where we're trusted to figure out from context it's used to make a purple dye.
The most egregious was in Book 5 when we take time to stop the most dramatic fight and have a nice long encyclopedia entry about how Grim reaper arcanists merge like knightmare arcanists and cover information we've heard many times before. It's a high impact fight and it gets ruined by this needless and frustrating detour.
3) Details get lost in the final books.
Book 5, the world serpent considers bonding with the Kirin arcanist even though they broke in and didn't have the stone.
End of book 5, Adelgis can't read Volke's thoughts. Book 6 with no noted changes, he can read all Volke's thoughts.
Book 5 Volke sees a glowing read mark and have no vague clue what it means. Book 6, suddenly puts it together that it's a dread form arcanist.
Book 6 We're having a magi cross with Volke and so in theory the godbeast can re-bind with the winner however we know that they “live and die as one” which is a specific distinction. But oh wait we let the slug live after Theasin dies then we talk about how we can't kill the sky titan arcanist because it will kill the sky titan. Very frustrating.
B00k 6, Zelfree's constant usage of “kid” really got on my nerves because I don't remember it in any of the other books and seemed to come out of nowhere.
Book 7 we have no one to bond with the fenris wolf but we're going anyway, obviously it will be Zaxis
When you over explain and specify details you put a lot of pressure on yourself to keep consistent and the failure to do so really hit hard in the final 3 books.
With some aggressive editing this series could really shine but the writing style really hampered my ability to get into the books. The overuse of “not curses”, constant explaining of things we already learned, characters verbally answering when it's not needed and generally obscure view of power levels in the books left me relieved to finish the series rather than excited to come back.
I think it's time to get off this ride. The issues with the first book are magnified here. The battle scenes are disjointed and have minimal urgency because of the writing style: “Person used name of ability in the shape of x, with the colors j and k using the elements m and n which was their circuit/domain at the level of y “
The excessive use of this formula really ruined the positive aspects of the book for me. I would have killed for “Jonx armored up, readying for the battle to come.”
I was excited to see the growth from solo adventurer to adventure duo but instead that was thrown out and we went back to heavy repetition of might makes right and boot-licker puppet develops Stockholm syndrome for newest kidnapper/owner.
Despite all this the universe is interesting enough to make me actually consider reading the next book, maybe that Stockholm syndrome is getting to me as well.
This is an odd book for me. Fits right in with my traditional tastes but the execution is too busy with jargony litrpg repetition on skills and abilities for my taste. I find it to break up action and story too much. Despite this I really loved the book.
The most compelling part for me is that I have well and truly no idea who the good or bad factions are. It's really cool to be like “this is our hero who has done terrible things” and “this is our ‘bad guy” who seems to have a really noble goal. I love it, haven't read a book that made me feel this way in forever.
Great book, was an enjoyable accidental read.
I purchased this book for my wife but I was real sick and started reading it thinking it was a different book. I am so glad that I did
Unlike any story I've read while still being similar. I loved the compelling duo of main characters.
There's no “good guy” in this book and yet it's a book of hope and change. The magic systems were well developed, the different races were clearly explained and there was just enough history to go with the story rather than getting mired in details.
I'm pretty bad at writing book reviews but this was a great book and doesn't feel like a first effort for a new author.
Looking forward to what's next.
Tl;DR
Read chapters 1 and 2 then skip right to chapters 7.
The story, characters and plot really blossoms and carries an excitement through the end of the book and into waiting for the next.
I've put off writing this review for a while because it's not going to be completely positive.
Will is my favorite author, I love his writing, if I could, I would read his old creative writing assignments from school, his diary, his shopping list, literally anything he's written.
However, I feel like his editors and advanced readers dropped the ball.
The first two chapters were fine, good backstory and setup.
Then we spend what feels like forever trapped in the world of “Tell don't show” which is the opposite of what Will usually does so exceptionally in his books. There's just a loop of XYZ is very very hard! XYZ is not hard for Varic because he's so competent and amazing! We have no reference for XYZ, honestly we don't care about XYZ. Now repeat that basic formula for a dearth of other things and it becomes exhausting.
I understand that in his other books the heroes started weak and developed strength over the series so there was some kind of pressure here to have us understand that our hero is already strong, but we get to live that later on in the book so let's just get to that part sooner.
As I said to start, if I were telling someone to read this book I'd tell them to read the first 2 chapters then jump to chapter 7. They avoid having to slog through a dry and encyclopedic following of Varic and any confusion they have will be answered fully if they just keep reading.
While a bit jargon-y the story shines and the concept of the crew and ship really is compelling and I'm super excited for the rest of the series.
This book is fun and enjoyable. I enjoyed the fight scenes a ton, the progression aspect was very well handled and it was a good read. If you like progression fantasy, or if you just like fantasy it's enjoyable.
The world we see is small but it is very compelling.
I want to know more about it. I want stories from different perspectives, I want prequel stories on Dent, I want to know more about the other systems, the baddies, what's happening on earth all of it.
There are some spelling errors, I think you have to have a decent bit of game experience to really understand the protagonists struggles, and the antagonists, with the exception of the main one, were all pretty flat. Unlike most readers I thought with one of the heroine's personalities and the antagonist's description it was no surprise when sparks flew.
This book was on my radar for a while but I put it off for one reason or another and I'm only glad about that because it makes for a shorter wait for the sequel.
I got this book based on the recommendation of another author and I love supporting self published authors so I hit the lowest tier Kickstarter and figured if I didn't like it then no harm done I just toss it.
I read slow but this book sucked me in and I started up late reading rather than put it down. Great characters that have depth, solid world building and I really like the magic systems.
I've got a pretty hefty to-read list and it's only getting longer as I add AC's other works to the list.
Great work, thank you for the adventure.
(Had to edit my review because my stars didn't save the first time? This is a 5* book, no questions about it.)
Tl;dr
If I wasn't drawn to character driven stories I'd have quit this book and just read the wiki. Thank goodness this is over. I will 100% reread the first 7, I will then skim the rest.
Thank goodness for Fiddler, Quick Ben and the Adjunct.
The first seven books were a masterpiece of interconnected plots and characters. You could feel how intense the outlining was that lead to these.
Book 8: well... There was a general direction but nothing is coming to resolution.
Book 9: There's no outline anymore, some notes strewn around that are rarely referenced. Characters and plots languish and die. I die reading random pages of new plots that don't really seem to matter. end of book “this was totally supposed to be the end but it's not and it's really just the first half of the last book”
Book 10: Sir, you lied. This is not a “second half” of a book, you introduced and entire new writing technique because you were floundering so hard for how to try and end this in 1k pages. If this was developed like it was in the beginning the last three books would have been the last 6. If I didn't love Ublala I would have throttled you for that plot uselessness and seven million pages of the worm was the most colossal waste of time.
Also, how the heck do you justify doing less development on THE BIG BAD ENEMY than we did on some random queen that showed up this book, that queen's kid on a boat, Draconus, or a bunch of skinny kids. Like how was that forgotten?
I really wish this we got the 6 books this epic needed needed rather than the 3 books that we did.
Originally I rated this 3 stars and I thought that was fair. Then I realized that I had lost any interest in going back and re-reading the older Shannara books and it's because of how poorly this book was written and the “ending” was handled.
There was so much wasted exposition and travel between this book and the one before you could have made these four books a trilogy easily and with some good editing been done in 2 and it would have been a much better journey.
This book is so tough to review. First I'll start with the admission that I purchased the book by mistake.
This book could have been really good if the author let go of trying to stick to the cradle concepts and truly just took the books as inspiration.
I read the whole book, so I can't give it a 2-star or fewer and there were these sections that were just great to read. The characters would finally have a consistent voice, the magic system and the world concepts would all flow together then something would shatter it and we'd be back into a mess.
This author has promise, if there was a sequel or a new book I'd give it a shot for sure.
This book seems like a fine rough draft where with some cutting and expanding it could be a solid novel.
I would want to see the author do their own world building. The things taken from cradle clashed with the homegrown concepts that they brought to the book. Refining the world and making it their own would have been huge.
I'd want each character to get their own consistent voice. Every character ended up sounding like the others too often and their individuality got lost. Nin was the best done I think.
Please stop telling us and not showing us and more so towards the end stop telling us and then showing us. Don't have nin tell us she forgot how perceptive children can be just have her chuckle softly at the perceptiveness of youth. Just show the antediluvian as levitating rather than saying the feet don't touch the ground and that's because because they are levitating.
And as a personal pet peeve the repetition of the same word was grating. Using bastion 3 times in as many paragraphs or the old owl's old mistress (old, old) just hurts the flow.
Reading the book starts with an intro to our characters then it abruptly ends and we get a new intro that begins building the world and our actual characters.
Throw out the first intro and drip in portions through stories and flashbacks. This then forces our protagonist to need a real motivation to leave Old Omen. The kid literally knows jack diddly about the divine arts yet he's gonna go get real wise and bring it back to his clan that shivved him under a tree at 6 years old? Just not believable especially after how he found a real family in OO.
I think it's really telling that the good parts were enough to keep me around until the end. A first effort that shows promise, I look forward to see how this author grows.
Over all really good. I've got some new authors to look into like Laura M Hughes, Jeffrey Hall and David Benem among some others. However allowing an author to include “short story” that has no solid conclusion and is just an advertisement for an existing series is disappointing enough for me to both deduct a star and resolve not to bother with the author who provided the material.
This truly is the best series that Will has ever done.
The dual perspective books are so well crafted and fit together to tell such a good story it's amazing. Telling a story from the perspective of someone as emotionally different like Shera is a huge challenge and his ability to keep her voice consistent though all of the situations is masterful. It was such a pleasure to dive back into this universe and get just as wrapped up in the history and the mystique as I did the first time.
Wow. The book as a whole was pretty ok. Certainly not up to expectations for character development but overall pretty ok. The battle scenes lacked the quality explanations and were shadows of former books. The ending. Double U. Tee. Eff. In about 10 pages of what should have been a climactic cliffhanger was delivered as a rushed and bland account that read like little more than an expanded outline. Thank goodness he's ending this series with the next book because if this is the quality to be expected I wouldn't bother reading them. I've seen the idea floated that he had a ghost writer for this and given the stark contrast in quality between this and Street Freaks, I believe it.
I have been truly sucked into this series. Does a great job of balancing how much you're told, how much you can guess and how much you want to know.
I love Rowe's books, I preordered this (even though I knew I wouldn't get to it asap)and so I'm pretty surprised to have a DNF here.
If you enjoy learning incredibly in-depth and well thought out magic systems with a smattering of intriguing characters I think you'll enjoy it. Like the type of person who enjoys reading all the rules before playing a new game.
I can stick with a book that has an intriguing story or a compelling character but I don't get grabbed by the world building aspect.
Feels like there was an intentional choice to change writing style for this book and I will try and give this some more reading, but this style is a lot different than his other books that I've loved and it's just not for me.